The explosion of musical talent in 1960’s Beatlemania Britain also gave rise to a nascent electronic musical instrument industry and as the swinging sixties gave way to the rather less swinging but musically more progressive 1970’s a company called MIDAS amplification was formed in London by Jeff Byers and Charles Brooke, manufacturing transistorised guitar amplifiers and speaker cabinets.

In 1971, around the same time that Midas Amplification were making their transistorised guitar amplifiers, up in the English Midlands another company was formed by brothers Philip and Terence Clarke, which produced coin-operated car washing and vacuuming machines.

These new industry connections resulted in an association with Supertramp’s sound rental company “Delicate Productions” and Jeff Byers going on the road with Supertramp on their “Crime of the Century” tour alongside engineer Russell Pope in 1974.

MIDAS had run into financial challenges with the XL console, which it was unable to bring to market. Terry Clarke knew Jeff Byers and had a high regard for MIDAS, and whilst the purchase of DDA had cost £2 million, funded by the stock exchange floatation, the MIDAS business was acquired for considerably less.

It was the next MIDAS console that re-established the brand, the XL3 was essentially a monitor version of the XL2, but with the innovative use of VCA faders (fitted on to the front of the original chassis) making the product suitable for Front of House mix duties, too.

The next project was the flagship XL4 which still stands as the ultimate statement in analogue live performance mixing consoles, and is still?specified on concert tour riders today. The console toured the world with Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Metallica, The Rolling Stones, Simply Red and many other high profile acts.

MIDAS too had been busy in Kidderminster, with the innovative LEGEND 3000 console, launched in 2002. As well as being suited to both Front of House and monitor mix duties, the console featured two sets of faders per channel to allow simultaneous mixing for both from the same?console – hence it being advertised as the world’s first “Tri-Purpose” mixing console.

MIDAS recruited a small team of former Amek R&D engineers to form the core of its new digital console team. Working out of a tiny office in Empress Buildings, a converted Victorian Brewery in Manchester. This team, augmented by R&D staff in Kidderminster, would be responsible for the hardware and DSP design, analogue circuitry and front-end user interface development.

The MIDAS XL8 Live Performance System digital console was launched at the Frankfurt Pro Light + Sound trade show in March 2006 to great acclaim. A total of three consoles were at the show, two on the booth and one in the giant outdoor Agora Tent, the XL8 was quite literally the talk?of the show.

With the XL8 aimed squarely at the highest end of the market, the digital console development team spent the next two years concentrating on the next phase, scaling down the XL8 technology into a “workhorse” package.

One of the first projects that MIDAS embarked upon utilised the large scale manufacturing resources of the MUSIC Group and created the million-cycle MIDAS PRO FADER, which greatly exceeds the operational life of motorised faders fitted to competitor consoles.

For over 40 years MIDAS and KLARK TEKNIK have repeatedly shown award-winning innovation and leadership in the world of high end professional audio, producing landmark products that have defined and shaped the live industry.